Medicine Report

DataHumans are nothing like you imagine and just like the Wii in terms of our movements possibly controlling our minds and vice versa. We are also constantly making strange mind-body connections.

I just read a fascinating NYT article which focused on embodied cognition, which is basically the relationship between our minds and bodies; and according to Wikipedia, is setting off a firestorm in both the philosophy world and the world of AI.
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Churchill's "Black Dog"The placebo effect is based on the expectation of treatment, and its effects are insidious.  Depression has long been known to be a disease which is strongly susceptible to the placebo effect.  But the extent of the placebo effect with depression is only starting to come to light.  A long and fascinating article in Newsweek lays out the case that if antidepressant medication works, it's only because of the placebo effect.

Antidepressant medication is big business in America, to the tune of $9.6 billion in sales in 2008.  However, research into antidepressants is leading experts to believe we may be buying $9.6 billion of sugar pills - with serious side effects and withdrawal.  
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Skittles: The Homeopathic Cure for DiabetesThe United Kingdom has been either more plagued by homeopathic "remedies" or has a more scientifically aware and skeptical and vocal populace, because whenever I hear about a protest against homeopathy, it's happening somewhere in England.  In the latest news, a protest is being planned against homeopathic remedies being marketed in the nation's largest pharmacy chain.   Protesters will each down a bottle of homeopathic remedies to prove exactly how little effect they have.
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It's winter, which means it's cold and flu season. Ergo, at least one out of every eight of you readers are experiencing some kind of viral misery at this very moment. It also means that TV commercials and Internet banner ads are doing their best to sell you some kind of tincture, pill or spray that promises to make your life while sick a breeze, if not outright cure you. Sorry, folks. If there was a cure for the common cold it'd be in lockdown in some billionaire's heavily fortified mansion waiting for customers who are willing to pay a small fortune for the convenience. For the rest of us, battling that blasted rhinovirus requires some time, a little know-how and some positive thinking. Here are some tips to put you on the mend as fast as modern technology will allow. Read more

AlcoholismA few months ago, the LA Times ran an article relating to a study about alcoholics. Specifically, the study focused on an alcoholic’s sense of emotions including how they reacted to faces and how easy it is for alcoholics to feel out other people’s emotions from facial expressions.

The results were unusual- alcoholics, even when they are not drinking, have a much harder time reading people’s emotions than everybody else. This isn’t due to any inherent flaw in an alcoholic, but a difference in the brain’s reaction in the area of hippocampus and the amygdala. Usually, these areas light up after seeing someone’s face, but this doesn’t necessarily happen in the typical alcoholic.
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Natural Medication Guide to Bipolar DisorderI’ve been taking medication for Bipolar I most of the time since I was diagnosed, but am always interested in looking into alternatives to a medication-only regime in hopes of lessening my side effects and maybe even lessening the damage to my internal organs. Recently, I read “The Natural Medicine Guide to Bipolar Disorder” by Stephanie Marohan.
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The New York Times has an article which exerpts a bunch of stuff from an upcoming book.  While this is always a dicey proposition (generally if an author's argument takes an entire book to make in the first place, trying to explain the whole thing in a single newspaper article is only going to lead to tears) it is already leading to controversy.
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CNN has a co-article with Real Simple magazine which breaks down the different kinds of vitamins.  Each kind of vitamin gets three bullet points: "What they are," "Benefits," and "Keep in mind."  This is puff piece reporting at its finest, since nowhere in the article does it question the wisdom of taking a vitamin at all, much less pit different kinds of vitamins against each other in a meaningful way.

A disinterested reader might come away from the article with an impression that all vitamins are pretty much the same.  Some contain a little bit more of one vitamin than another, or come in an easier delivery system.  (For example, I know a lot of people who don't like to swallow pills, and prefer chewable adult multivitamins.)
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The push towards usage of generic drugs has been strong in the last few years.  On one side you have frugal people who resist the pushy advertising and marketing advances of pharmaceutical companies.  On the other side, you have health insurance companies who are desperate to cut costs wherever possible, several of which have begun to demand that their customers choose generics whenever they are available.

Unfortunately, new data suggests that generic drugs, while they contain the exact same medicine as their "name brand" counterparts, may not work as well.  The problem lies with the inert ingredients, that other stuff that makes a pill a pill.  This binder is often made of a cheaper chemical in generic drugs (it's not just marketing that keeps prices high) and it may not dissolve or disperse into the patient's blood stream as well as the name brand version.
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olive oilOlive oil not only offers a great taste to a variety of dishes including pasta, chicken, and even salads, but it also has many health benefits and is a great substitute for high fat and sodium content items such as butter or oils made from animal fat. Here are just a few of the health benefits that you can get from adding olive oil to your diet. Read more